A Follow Up — Well, we certainly stepped in it, judging by the "blogstorm" over Nick's post this past Friday. Over the past 24 hours scores of highly respected voices have chimed in on Microsoft's campaign, and I wanted to take the time to read as much of it as I could, really listen, and figure out where I came down in all of this.

Buying their voices — Federated Media stepped in it with their latest campaign, getting some of its bloggers to issue not so bon mots on behalf of a not so bon advertiser, Microsoft. — I tried to warn Federated when I adamantly turned down two prior similar campaigns …

Hah. Battelle Says His Authors Should Have Disclosed — More happenings on the sponsored text debate: John Battelle, CEO of FM Publishing, the ad network behind the ads, throw his authors, including us, under a bus today when he writes: … hmm. Disclose? Disclose what?

Are Bloggers and Marketers Really Evil? — The blog world is trying to reinvent journalism, and finding that in many ways, they have to start back at the very beginning. Accusations have been flying this week over online advertorials with bloggers. It all seems to have started with this Valleywag post …

The Human Touch That May Loosen Google's Grip — ONCE upon a time, the most valuable secret formula in American business was Coca-Cola's. Today, it's Google's master algorithm. — In the search business, however, there's no rival to play the role of Pepsi.

The role of humans in Google search — Randy Stross wrote an interesting article for the New York Times about search with a human touch, and I wanted to talk about the role of people in Google search. — On this post, you get not one but *two* disclaimers. It's all part of my read-one-disclaimer, get-a-free-disclaimer program!

New details about the iPhone — Remember the winning Engadget commercial, "The Long Arm of Steve Jobs"? We posted it after the break, but finding someone who's spent some serious time with a pre-launch iPhone and getting them to talk is basically a lot like that.

Lower prices ahead for Wi-Fi access? — MILAN: With the proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots, it has become possible to open a laptop and connect to the Internet in just about any major airport as well as thousands of hotels, restaurants, cafes and bars. Yet logging on can sometimes be onerous …

Defamation lawsuit seeks to unmask anonymous cowards — Server logs? what server logs? — They should've known better than to flame law students. — Two female law students at Yale University have filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Connecticut against an operator …

Xbox Live tries ads with McDonald's, New Line partnership — Free sponsored content aimed at attracting new download customers — Microsoft Xbox Live is partnering with McDonald's and New Line Home Entertainment to offer its first advertiser-sponsored movie, which will be available free …

When Computers Attack — ANYONE who follows technology or military affairs has heard the predictions for more than a decade. Cyberwar is coming. Although the long-announced, long-awaited computer-based conflict has yet to occur, the forecast grows more ominous with every telling …

What will Facebook look like in 40 years? — At the moment the generational difference means that the vast majority of users on sites like Facebook are the younger generation. But the other day, it crossed my mind that in the future, 40 or so years, Facebook will look somewhat different when we've all got a touch older.

Google Threatens to Close German Gmail Due to Local Law — According to information from Heise, Google warned that they might disable Gmail in Germany as last fallback should the German government maintain its position in regards to a newly passed law on record-keeping and supervision of internet traffic.

Windows share as seen by Mac OS X Leopard — A friend of mine got his copy of Leopard and it looks like the Apple team dropped a funny easter egg when viewing a Windows share. — Look closely … Billy said about 2 hours ago : — I still think a pie graph of M$ market share to apples is funnier.

Real Evil: ISP Inserted Advertising — Texas based ISP Redmoon has implemented software that hijacks pages being visited by their customers by placing Redmoon's own ads on these pages. — The technology is provided by NebuAD, which boasts that ISP delivered advertisements are an untapped source of revenue.

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